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Ulster's Ireland centre McCloskey signs new deal

Stuart McCloskey during Ireland team run at Twickenham (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Ulster Rugby have announced that Stuart McCloskey has committed his future to the club, putting pen to paper on a three-year contract extension that will keep him at Kingspan Stadium until 2022.

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McCloskey, who developed his game at Bangor GS and Dungannon RFC, made his Ulster debut in February 2014 and has represented his home province on 82 occasions. He has also been capped by Ireland three times.

Ulster’s Operations Director Bryn Cunningham said:

“This is very positive news for us going into the new season. We have quite a young squad so having experienced players like Stuart on board is hugely important.

“Stu has really grown in stature over the past couple of seasons and is a key figure for us in both attack and defence. His ability to cross the gain line is well-known, but his playmaking abilities have developed under the coaching of Dwayne Peel and he is a massive threat with ball in hand. I’m sure we’ll see him improve even more in the seasons ahead.”

McCloskey also expressed his delight after agreeing new terms.

“I’m really excited to have signed a new contract. I grew up dreaming of playing for Ulster and I feel privileged to now be in a position to pull the jersey on every week”, he said.

“We’ve recruited strongly and have a core group of experienced players who still have their best years ahead of them. We also have a large number of promising young players coming through the system, and I’ve no doubt that they will make a big impact in the coming years.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how things come together for us as we aim to bounce back to where we belong. Hopefully the supporters can buy into that as well and we can reward their loyalty.”

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J
JW 14 minutes ago
Why Les Kiss and Stuart Lancaster can lead Australia to glory

It is now 22 years since Michael Lewis published his groundbreaking treatise on winning against the odds

I’ve never bothered looking at it, though I have seen a move with Clint as a scout/producer. I’ve always just figured it was basic stuff for the age of statistics, is that right?

Following the Moneyball credo, the tailor has to cut his cloth to the material available

This is actually a great example of what I’m thinking of. This concept has abosolutely nothing to do with Moneyball, it is simple being able to realise how skillsets tie together and which ones are really revelant.


It sounds to me now like “moneyball” was just a necessity, it was like scienctest needing to come up with some random experiment to make all the other world scholars believe that Earth was round. The American sporting scene is very unique, I can totally imagine one of it’s problems is rich old owners not wanting to move with the times and understand how the game has changed. Some sort of mesiah was needed to convert the faithful.


While I’m at this point in the article I have to say, now the NRL is a sport were one would stand up and pay attention to the moneyball phenom. Like baseball, it’s a sport of hundreds of identical repetitions, and very easy to data point out.

the tailor has to cut his cloth to the material available and look to get ahead of an unfair game in the areas it has always been strong: predictive intelligence and rugby ‘smarts’

Actually while I’m still here, Opta Expected Points analysis is the one new tool I have found interesting in the age of data. Seen how the random plays out as either likely, or unlikely, in the data’s (and algorithms) has actually married very closely to how I saw a lot of contests pan out.


Engaging return article Nick. I wonder, how much of money ball is about strategy as apposed to picks, those young fella’s got ahead originally because they were picking players that played their way right? Often all you here about is in regards to players, quick phase ruck ball, one out or straight up, would be were I’d imagine the best gains are going to be for a data driven leap using an AI model of how to structure your phases. Then moving to tactically for each opposition.

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